January 15th, 2015

Security:

Subject:

Here we go...

Time:

04:46 pm

The guy who bought the laptop is claiming it does't work properly, is dirty, making noise, etc. etc. Since I spent a considerable amount of time cleaning it and making sure it works perfectly I'm not impressed. I suspect that this is the prelude to trying to scam me for a partial refund without returning the goods.

I've told him that if he's unhappy he should open an item dispute with ebay and return it to me for a refund. We'll see what happens.

update Friday - heard nothing more about this, which leaves me sure it was a quick attempt to scam for a partial refund. Meanwhile the buyer of the iMac G5 has left positive feedback, so at least that one's OK. Had a look at upping the hard disk size on the G4 but it's fairly complicated and I doubt it's worth the hassle. I'll try to get a suitable box today, and re-list it once I'm sure I'll be able to pack it if it sells.

Since then I've had a couple more messages from him, all on the same lines, along with a threat of bad feedback - one negative in 750+ transactions doesn't actually scare me much - and all of which got the reply that if he doesn't want it he should return it for a refund. We'll see what happens.

They also 'correct' DSRs which is really funny. So if you ship something on time, and it takes 2 weeks in the post, and the people mark you down for late delivery -- eBay quietly put it back up to 5 stars and don't tell the buyer they've done it. I ship very promptly, and they've corrected 15 of my DSRs that way! God knows what the buyers were expecting from free first/second class postage.

And yet for all these protections, when a customer actually does get ripped off, as I got ripped off by a Chinese seller recently, there was nothing Ebay would do.

Chinese seller produced 'delivery tracking confirmation' on some dodgy looking third party website I'd never heard of before, that didn't actually confirm delivery at all, all it did was say the package left a sorting depot when it entered the UK.

But Ebay said this was proof of delivery, and sided with the dodgy chinese seller, and then wouldn't let me leave feedback.

... they've entirely geared the whole site around huge dodgy Chinese sellers, and abandoned the small private sellers.

I got scammed in my last round of eBay sales. It wasn't a lot of money, and the chap was unfailingly polite -- but he emailed me about 10 minutes after I posted the goods asking me when they would arrive and I knew immediately that he'd be a non-receipt scammer. And so it proved. But I have left positive feedback for him that says 'I am so sorry the item didn't arrive' so other sellers have some warning.

Most of the stuff I send is big enough to need a courier, or valuable enough to need recorded delivery, either way I get proof of posting and delivery. Most of my cheaper items are so obscure (e.g. a blanking plate for the instrument panel of the fairing on a BMW motorbike) that the odds are that a buyer will not want to scam me, but again I keep the proof of posting.